Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Things I've Learned from Marvel Solicits

Well, the Marvel solicits are up and I have learned a few things about myself:

An immediate way to get me to read a comic: mention Captain America reverting to a 98-lb weakling.

I have no idea why, but that is my FAVORITE type of Steve story. He just looks so tiny and half-dead and somehow still manages to kick ass even when he looks like he'd break his little anorexic zombie hand trying to punch someone in the face.

An immediate way to NOT get me to read a comic: mention Daken AND X-23.

This isn't entirely fair, as it's perfectly reasonable to have Wolverine's daughter and Wolverine's son team up. But for all that I do appreciate Wolverine sometimes (usually in groups when he's not the starring role), I find little to anything appealing about his kids. I've gone into my issues with X-23 (toe claws!) and Daken, well, the bisexuality is really the ONLY thing remotely interesting about him, in my opinion.

And X-23 possibly embracing her dark side is only interesting in the sense that, well, I guess where she is currently is her fluffy bunny side? Yeah.

Finally: My wallet hates: that there are so many Captain America (specifically Steve-version Captain America, though I like Bucky too, my taste tends toward the original flavor) comics coming out. God, I'm glad I have a paying job right now. :-)

3 Comments:

About X-23 and Daken... well, I have no interest in Daken myself, and I doubt I could interest you in X-23 if it's just a clash of personality preferences, but maybe I can set you at ease about the toe claws :)

Toe claws alone I can handle. Quadrupeds (which humans are descended from) tend to have the same basic pattern for both front and hind limbs. Differences between the two are caused by developmental pattern changes in utero. In X-23's case, what was originally three claws activated only in the forelimbs was accidentally modified to both the reduce the number (3 -> 2) in the forelimbs, and activate a previously dormant/suppressed gene in the hindlimbs (the infamous toe claws).

What really pissed ME off about that was the stupid explanations they attached to it. Female of the species (what species?) needed them to defend her young (what evidence do they have for this?). Please. Then again, I have the same reaction pretty any of the idiocy that comes out of evo psych and related fields ;). My solution is generally to label the people who spout off on this stuff complete morons and mock them outrageously. Which makes the quacks who came up with this excellent fodder for comedy gold.

You know, intellectually I can appreciate that explanation. But honestly, all I can think of at the concept is: "What, a teenage girl Wolverine isn't interesting enough without adding some ower variation he doesn't have?"

Especially one that looks really dumb. Which it does, sorry. :-P

I can appreciate that there are people who enjoy the character and have good reasons for it. But for me, it's a preference thing. :-)